snakes along at
the water's edge, under the shadow of the bank, until much of the wild
scene in the village opposite was revealed to our searching eyes.

It was a mad saturnalia, half light, half shadow, amid which the fierce
figures of the painted warriors passed and repassed in drunken frenzy,
making night hideous with savage clamor and frenzied gesticulations. I
would have crept on farther, seeking a place for crossing unobserved,
had not De Croix suddenly grasped me by the leg. As I turned, the play
of the flames from across the water struck upon his white face, and I
could read thereon a terror that held him motionless.

"For Christ's sake, let us go!" he urged, in an agonized whisper, "See
what those demons are about to do! I fear not battle, Wayland, as you
know; but the scene yonder unmans me."

It is hard for me to describe now what then I saw. The entire centre
of the great encampment was brightly lit by a huge blazing fire, around
which hundreds of Indians were gathered, leaping and shouting in their
frenzy, while above the noise of their discordant voices we could
distinguish the flat notes of the wooden drum, the dull pounding of
which reminded me of the solemn tolling of a funeral bell. What
atrocities had been going on, I know not; but as we gazed across at
them in shuddering horror, forth from the entrance of a lodge a dozen
painted warriors drove a white man, stripped to the waist, his hands
bound behind him. As he stumbled forward, a bevy of squaws lashed him
with corded whips. I caught one glimpse of his face in the light of
the flames; it was that of a young soldier I recalled having seen the
evening before within the Fort, playing a violin. He was a brave lad,
and although his face was pale and drawn by suffering, he fronted the
crazed mob that buffeted him with no sign of fear, his eyes roving
about as if still seeking some possible avenue of escape. Once he
sprang suddenly aside, tripping a giant brave who grasped him, and
disappeared amid the lodges, only to be dragged forth a moment later
and pushed forward, horribly beaten with clubs at every step.

On a sudden, that shrieking, undulating crowd fell away, and we could
see the young man standing alone, bound to a stake, his body leaning
forward as if held to its erect posture merely by the bonds. The limp
drooping of his head made me think him already unconscious, possibly
dead from some chance fatal blow; but as the flames burst o